Author Topic: Albrecht / Dickert Connection  (Read 6997 times)

Offline Larry Pletcher

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Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« on: September 22, 2011, 03:29:05 AM »
Because of the rifle I bought from Mike Miller, I have spent time looking at "Moravian Gun Making" . I was drawn to the many similarities between the Andreas Albrecht gun (p. 119+) and the Dickert (p. 125+).  If they weren't signed, they might have been attributed to the same person.  Realizing that they were both Moravian, they must have known each, but I wonder if Jacob might have been trained by Andreas.  None of my other books were helpful.   Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

Does anyone know of a connection other than their contacts in the Moravian Church?  Thanks for your help. I'd guess that if there is an answer, it would likely come from this group.

Regards,
Pletch
Regards,
Pletch
blackpowdermag@gmail.com

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Offline Karl Kunkel

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2011, 04:30:25 AM »
I seem to remember a thread on the old board which discussed this subject, however I suck at the search function.  Any members of the old board recall such a discussion?  I had saved it, but lost it in a computer crash.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2011, 04:55:22 AM by Karl Kunkel »
Kunk

Offline Dphariss

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2011, 05:51:14 AM »
Because of the rifle I bought from Mike Miller, I have spent time looking at "Moravian Gun Making" . I was drawn to the many similarities between the Andreas Albrecht gun (p. 119+) and the Dickert (p. 125+).  If they weren't signed, they might have been attributed to the same person.  Realizing that they were both Moravian, they must have known each, but I wonder if Jacob might have been trained by Andreas.  None of my other books were helpful.   Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place.

Does anyone know of a connection other than their contacts in the Moravian Church?  Thanks for your help. I'd guess that if there is an answer, it would likely come from this group.

Regards,
Pletch



Shumway's RCA I discusses this as well,  see #48 and the associated rifles, #48 is the same Dickert shown in the Moravian Makers book. The similarities are very strong at least in the carving patterns. The connection seems pretty obvious to me...

Dan
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Offline Larry Pletcher

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2011, 06:08:08 AM »
I agree, Dan.  When Mike and I discussed my new gun in 2008, #48 was involved.  Later, I bought Moravian Gun Making when it came out, and there was the great comnparison.  There are just too many common details to discount a connection.  It's the interaction among contemporaries that makes regional styles so interesting IMHO.  My gut says that Dickert got a big dose of Albrecht somewhere along the line.

Regards,
Pletch 
Regards,
Pletch
blackpowdermag@gmail.com

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what can never be taken away.

Kayla Mueller - I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.  Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

Offline B Shipman

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2011, 07:15:07 AM »
THere was a presentation by the KRA a few years ago that dealt with this. There was a connection between all Moravian communities. Dickert bought barrels and locks from Christian Springs and they from him.  Dickert could not have apprenticed in Germany as he was 8 when he arived here. Albrecht was born in 1718  so he did. It's theoretically possible thta Dickert was an apprentice but no one knows. The similarity of style proves nothing as they were closely associated in any case. Albrecht simply moved to Lancaster Co. Had Dickert moved to Christian Springs prehaps his guns would have looked like theirs.

Offline Tom Currie

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2011, 03:45:17 PM »
It's unfortunate we don't have documented evidence of the master/apprentice relationships from the Bethelehem Moravian shop that we have from the later Christian's Spring shop.  Perhaps our answer lies in the Bethlhem shop.

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2011, 04:07:28 PM »
Albrecht, whom we see as a master builder, was truly a "journey-man" as he traveled around Europe then was at Christians Spring then Lititz.  It seems as likely to me that he adapted to the Lancaster (Dickert) style when he moved to Lititz than that he trained Dickert.  "When in Rome" etc.  "When in Lancaster, build a Lancaster rifle".  If he trained Dickert I'd expect to see a Dickert with a stepped wrist.
Andover, Vermont

mkeen

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #7 on: September 22, 2011, 07:01:02 PM »
Albrecht moved to Lititz, Lancaster County in 1771-1772 from Northampton County. Dickert appears as a gunsmith on the Lancaster city tax lists in 1770. In 1776 Dickert rented land in Manheim Township, north of Lancaster for a boring mill. Dickert operated this boring mill until 1802, the year Albrecht died. Lititz is only 8 miles north of Lancaster. Lititz was a closed Moravian settlement, open only to members of the Moravian church. Lancaster was not a Moravian community, but had a small Moravian church with numerous members who were gunsmiths in Lancaster.

It is pure speculation on why the rifles may look the same without having Dickert's or Albrecht's account books available. That said, another possibility does exist on why the guns may look so similar. In Pennsylvania German culture, parents tried very hard to make sure all children received exactly the same amount and equal quality of goods when they got married. Male and female alike. If a father had two sons getting married at the same time he would have to buy double of everything. Guns are not common items when a son gets married but it did occur. Albrecht may have had an order to prepare two identical guns, but did not feel he could complete two in time. The other gun could have been subcontracted out to Dickert. At that time Lancaster had a very robust rifle manufacturing business. Albrecht could have come to Lancaster often to get parts and I'm sure all the riflemakers were well acquainted with one another.

I have seen this phenomenon occur in furniture. Identical pieces made at the same time, from the same piece of wood, from the same shop because two children were getting married at the same time.

Mart Keen
« Last Edit: September 22, 2011, 07:37:51 PM by mkeen »

Offline spgordon

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #8 on: September 22, 2011, 11:54:00 PM »
If Dickert was a practicing gunsmith by 1770, there is little likelihood that he was trained by Albrecht--who arrived in Lititz in May/June 1771 (as Mart noted). At Lititz Albrecht did train William Henry, Jr. But WH Jr. was just 14, was formally apprenticed to Albrecht, and, as was usual in Moravian apprentice arrangements, came to live in the closed settlement of Lititz. I don't know of any situation--though there may be one--in any Moravian trade where an established tradesman (as Dickert was already an established gunsmith) received "training." (This is different than training an adult man who wishes to enter a new trade.)

In Nazareth, when William Henry (Jr.) had his own gun shop after 1780, the Moravian authorities carefully policed who he accepted as apprentices and indeed who he employed in his factories. There were careful records kept of all of this; whenever individuals came to or went from (or entered into some sort of business arrangement with) Moravian settlements, the overseer's committee had to weigh in and the committee's minutes recorded their decision. If Dickert had any formal relationship with Albrecht (which is unlikely given the timing), the Lititz Moravian records would register it.

This doesn't mean that the two men didn't influence one another in less formal ways. Rich's suggestion that Albrecht, upon arriving in Lancaster County, may have adopted Lancaster styles makes sense. The Lititz Overseer's Committee minutes do make it clear that Albrecht's trade was not flourishing:

19 June 1772:
Concerning Br. Albrecht's lack of work it was suggested: that he should have his work advertised. Then also that he should take a trip to visit a certain Lowry, who is an Indian trader and sells many guns, in order to introduce himself.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2011, 12:29:56 AM by spgordon »
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline Tom Currie

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #9 on: September 23, 2011, 01:46:34 AM »
As Rich as others have alluded too it's pretty accepted that the the Albrecht Lititz rifle ( which appears restored in the KRA Foundation book ) was made in the Lancaster fashion of the day. Double C scroll included.

The question for me is who trained Dickert , or was he the " Father" of the Lancaster pattern ?  Because he was a Moravian to me  that's provides a possible link, but I'm no certainly no Moravian expert. Certainly there were builders in Lancaster earlier than Dickert  but we know so little of that 1740 to 1760 period we may never know.

Offline Larry Pletcher

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2011, 05:06:43 AM »
Thank you all for your insight. It seems that the more you look for, the more likenesses you find.  I had been looking at all details on just 2 rifles. Tonight I looked at one detail (tang carving) on all the guns in "Moravian Gun Making".  It's cool to see these relationships.

I know you fellows have studied these guns for years and have a far better handle on these connections.  As a mere student of regional styles, I find this one of the most fastenatinig  aspects of the flintlock.

Again my thanks,
Pletch
Regards,
Pletch
blackpowdermag@gmail.com

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what can never be taken away.

Kayla Mueller - I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.  Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

Offline spgordon

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #11 on: September 23, 2011, 04:33:57 PM »
I just went by the Moravian Archives here in Bethlehem and looked in the Lancaster Diary for 1822, when Dickert died, and there's a lengthy memoir about him. (There's also a shorter, paragraph-long mention of him in the Church Register, which is the source for the information that appears in Whisker, Heckert & Vaughn, etc.)

I will need to have the memoir translated in full, but it does say that Dickert came to Lancaster at the age of sixteen (1756) to learn the riflemaking trade and that he was active in it until about 2 years before his death. Unlike William Henry's memoir, which notes that Henry apprenticed to Matthias Roesser (identified by name, perhaps, because Roesser had been a member of the Moravian church and many listening to the memoir read aloud at Henry's funeral would have remembered Roesser), Dickert's memoir does not mention who he apprenticed with. Nor does the memoir mention Albrecht anywhere, which you would think it would had Dickert had any formal relationship with him.

So who could Dickert have learned the trade from in 1756 in Lancaster? Matthias Roesser. William Henry. Others?
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #12 on: September 23, 2011, 05:45:18 PM »
So who could Dickert have learned the trade from in 1756 in Lancaster? Matthias Roesser. William Henry. Others?

When did Newcomer the elder arrive in Lancaster?  He may have been there but is an unlikely candidate for being Dickert's master based on style. 

I'll also vote against Matthias Roesser without anything more than a hunch.  For a few years I have been chewing on the possibility that Matthias Roesser's apprentices including his son Peter used carving styles that are distinct from the classical double C scroll Lancaster design and that he influenced the York school significantly through those he trained.  He may have established the "York" tang carving style.  If not him, whom?  In the Peter Resor (Roesser) "ghost" rifle, the carving is quite un-Lancaster and shares some motifs with some Schroyer-attributed guns, Newcomer pieces and the Free Born rifle.  I do not want to start a tangent but just suggest that Matthias Roesser may not have been the one to train Dickert.  We have so little to go on.
Andover, Vermont

Offline JTR

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2011, 06:34:52 PM »
Pletch,
I can't add anything of use to the discussion, but, I'm curious as to what rifle you bought!?

How about some pictures! ;D

John
John Robbins

Offline Larry Pletcher

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2011, 06:58:46 PM »
John,
I posted a few pics of the rifle in "Black Powder Shooting" with a topic named "New Mike Miller Lancaster".  I shares a lot with #48 in RCA #1 but of course has features in common with other Lancaster guns as well.   That's what sparked my interest in Dickert, Albrecht, and other Christian Springs connections.
Regards,
Pletch
« Last Edit: September 23, 2011, 07:00:08 PM by Pletch »
Regards,
Pletch
blackpowdermag@gmail.com

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what can never be taken away.

Kayla Mueller - I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.  Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

Offline JTR

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Re: Albrecht / Dickert Connection
« Reply #15 on: September 24, 2011, 05:11:31 AM »
 ;D Hey Pletch, Now I see the reason you're so thrilled! That's quite the spectacular rifle!!!
Congratulations and enjoy her in good heath.
John
John Robbins